QUIET HOUR

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 2 April 1927, Page 16

QUIET HOUR

THE ROMANCE OF CHRISTIANITY (Notes ol an address by Rev. L. E. Bennett, M.A., 8.D.) Rev. L E. Jbennett, M. A. 8.D., Principal 'of Leign Uodege, presided at the Inaugural --uidress in connection with the N..S.W. Joint faculty or Theology. The address was delivered in I'iTt Street eongiegational Ciiurcn, Svdney, on Tuesday evening, loth March, by Rev. L. E. Bennett, Master or Wesley College, within tne University ol Sydney. The Joint f aculty includes Ist. Andrew's (Presbyterian), neigii (Methodist), and Camden (Congregational) Colleges, ana is now entering its ninth year or united training aiming tne past eight years two hundred students have enjoyed the benel'it-s or this ionn of co-operation between the three denominations, by which the combined stalls or all three colleges are placed at tne disposal of tne students in each. The experiment has been abundantly justified and the Joint Facu.ty may now be regarded as an approved and established institution.

THE ROMANCE OF CHRISTIANITY The new term could hardly, have found a moie fitting inauguration than was furnished by the stimulating and altogether deiigntfui address or Mr. Bennett. The title ot the addiess was well fitted to arrest attention and to excite expectancy. W hen a man or woman in a decisive moment flings all to the winds for the sake of love, or pity, or honour, or anv otner spiritual quality, said Mr. Bennett, we call such a choice romantic. Ruth the Moabitess, leaving her ancestral home, Albert Schweitzer, a a notable New Testament scholar, going out as a medical doctor to one of uidiealthiest parts of Africa, Ghandi, casting aside a large income to take upon hiniseli a vow ol poverty, were cited as examples of the romantic. In all these there is romance, said Mr. Bennnett, liecause all else is forgotten or thrown aside for the sake of one or other of those divine emotions, which in our greatest moments well up from the fountain of the great deep | within our souls. AY bat then shall we say of Jesus Christ ? The life of Jesus of Nazareth is clearly the most romantic of all. He deliberately risked everything upon a few ageless sumplicities of the spiritupon love and hope, upon faitn and righteousness. Th e parable of the Prodigal Son is romantic to a degree, for it dares to lest tne matter of man’s salvation upon the deepest ami strongest emotion oc the human heart, which it implies is in us, because it is in God-. Much of our forsenie theology of ledemption splits upon the rock or the c.ear simplicity of this parable. An interpretation of the Cross is incomplete, if we see in it only suffering, however emancipating, and do not discern in its decisive choice something romantic, romantic because it proclaims in language ■ beyond all speech that Love has conquered, romantic because it sets over against- tiie world with its weight of wickedness and treachery, the beauty and power of something imponderable- and unseen, which it holds to be more abidingeven the spirit, to which the taunt of a bystander paid its unconscious tribute, “He saved others, Himself He cannot save. ’’The cross indeed reminds us that in out redemption in Curist romance is lifted to its highest spiritual level, if we mortals become diviner when we sacrifice all for iOve’s sake, what shall we say of the conception, all through. Evangelical theology, that in the Cioss God in Christ has risked ail on Love wondiousl.V manhested.

Alter brief reference to the romance or early disciple-ship in the early Church as seen in Stephen, in St. Paul, and in the author ot the Apocalypse, Mr Bennet asked—ls Christianity, as it exists to-day, unromantie? He thinks that while there is plenty of romance here and there in individual souls, organised. Christianity as a whole, with its shibboleths and divisions, does seem to be badly lacking in romance. In the lifetime of Jesus the issue was clear, a bold challenge to men to venture on a certain way of living, the open secret of wlrioh was written large on the soul of Christ himself. But to-day is the issue clear and unmistakable ? Is it so clear that the wistful person outside the Churches knows what it is Is he not naturally confused by the bewildering variety in our presentation of the Christian case? Dean Inge goes so far as to say, ‘•Christianity is the generic name of a number of different religions,-some of which have only an adventitious connection with the Gospel of Christ.” The evil that has befallen Christianity in the centuries is simply the peril threatening every spontaneous flowering time of the spirit among —men it is the danger that the pure spiritual movement will lie pressed into some mould, or beaten out by controversy into a formulated system by doughty ■souls anxious to preserve it, and strangely fearful lest the spirit, which gave it birth, should die out in the race. Thus Jesus, who probably wrote nothing, who had faith enough to risk writing nothing . . . has so often been imprisoned in a literal interpretation of His own recorded words, in a maze of doctrines foreign to His Spirit, and_ beneath a weight of eeclesiastism designed forsooth to defend Him against the assaults of the world. Is it not possible, however, to revive romantic diseipleship in the Church? Mark tells how four fishermen left their nets and followed Jesus. What was the secret of that romance? To go down the days with so alluring a Guide —well it was worth all. Our chief concern, however, is not with the fishermen outlined against the lake, but with ourselves, whose lot is cast in this imperilled modern world. If there ever was a call to romantic adventure in religion, that call is sounding now. It is the task of you who study for the Christian Ministry to drive into the heart of things with an ideal of living clear-cut and challenging—challenging because it is in sharp contrast to the life of the world at large. This venture, as Mr. Bennett admitted, may not turn the world upside down, or lead to immediate success. Indeed it will often seem that the few unseen simplicities, upon which you would fain build, are overborne by the sheer strength and promilieire of our materialistic civilisation. But the romance, the venture is in this, that you choose these simplicities, which flourished in Jesus for their own sakes. as the only things ultimately valuable.

Really confronting its task, the Christian Ministry is about as full of adventure and romance and sheer difficulty. as any calling could well be. It is of course thought by many to be supremely dull, a thing full of inhibitions and pious solemnities, effete and effeminate, and truly some of the advocates of religion give point unwittingly to these descriptions! But consider the bristling difficulty, the enterprise of the thing thnt_~you are supposed to have the hardihood to attempt to do. It is not simply to utter in word the oft enunciated truths of the Gospel in the pulpit, or in the open; it is to

drive in upon individuals and upon society wnu tne impact o± a. iue, that really dares to risk all ui>on the simplicities or Christ —an impact pote.pt at the present juncture, as it is made in deeds, rather than in speech. Any man who will have tue vision and the courage to try this for a week, will .be in no doubt about the enlivening and romantic character of his venture.

After a. reference to recent cables about the white .slave traffic Mr Bennett said that such evils help to show tlie complex difficulty and yet the romantic opportunity or our Christian enterprise, which assails them with the and the power of the New Testament ideal. In the romantic there is an element of surprise, which Mr Bennett considers to lie sadly lacking in the Chrstian ministry to-day. Christ’s disciples could hardly ever predict what He would say or do. He was moved suddenly in His great moments by His impulses and by His ultra clear vision. >This adventurous Spirit Air. Bennett fears, is not characteristic of the ministry to-day'. We generally say the expected thing! We preach sermons that are “enjoyed,” or some of us do! But- our preaching lacks challenge. In individual life romance arises when the soul is at white heat through the onset of great events. We live in one of -the greatest days of God that men have known. If it is not illuminating our minds' like a beacon of the Eternal, the light that is in us must, be darkness indeed.

Christianity is not a reasoned philosophy, not merely a religion of illumination. Its beauty and its power are self-evident to the soul that is in love with it, and the all important thing in our response to it in the dread silences of our being. When all has. been said in criticism of Christianity it still remains true that in that One Incalculable Person of Nazareth is the haunting hope of better things, that there is something which throws most of us into wistful longing, there in that clear life is the secret "which we are striving all our days to find,” the secret which would keep this or any other age from perishing, there is our suprertie vision of the Divine. My Brethren of the ministry, said Mr Bennett in closing this exquisite appeal to the young students before him. F von see that these things are tree. i r is your vision, and you are prepared to follow it, then has the good hand of God already lighted the flame of romance in yo-’r soptd,—Kerux in the " * Christian Wor'd.”